Dealing With Disappointment

Another letter to my grandchildren's grandchildren.

In the news these last few days, there has been an article about GCSE grades. GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education), is a U.K. certificate of education awarded to school students aged 16, in their last year of normal (compulsory), education after they take some exams to show that they have achieved a certain standard.

This qualification has been devalued in the last 20 years as standards have dropped and marking has become more lenient. Please understand, this is not just my opinion formed by talking to the 500 or so introvert grads that I worked with at Ford whose knowledge of educational buzzwords was presented with haughty disdain while their General Knowledge and grasp of social skills, people and behavioural subtext was embarrassingly low. Oh no, it is the opinion of people in Education who are prepared to express that opinion on TV in the face of protests from peers with lower standards.

One retired examiner on Radio 4 about two weeks ago, told us that they were instructed to ignore “blatant errors”. She praised Michael Gove (Education Secretary) for trying to restore standards.

Similarly, last night on BBC News, an ex-Head Teacher and examining Board Manager, also criticised the decline in standards of the last 20 years while praising Michael Gove for trying to raise standards. However, today's low educational standards are not the point of this essay.

The complaint of a) students and b) most teachers and Head Teachers is that it was “unfair” to change the standards mid-year. Some pupils, a minority, had taken the exams in January and been marked to the old standards (which have now been declared 'generous'), but the majority had - as you’d expect from kids - left it as late as possible and taken them in June. It is this group that had been marked to the higher standard and so got ‘D’s when they were advised by their teachers (before they took the exams - so what was the point in taking the exams?), that they could expect a ‘C’.

No one is talking about their pitifully low expectations. Why are so many pupils ‘Hoping for a C’? The other things that seems strange to me is that both teachers and pupils are whinging about it being ‘unfair’. Life is unfair. Get used to it.

Some people are better looking than others. Some people are taller than others. Some people are fat and ugly while other are slim, trim models, stylish and attractive. Some people when they speak, are considered by their audience to be smart and others, as soon as the words leave their mouths, are judged by their utterances to be thick. People are judgemental and no amount of legislating for an anodyne world will make that go away.

Some people have indecent amounts so money, well beyond that necessary to meet their needs if they stopped earning and just spent freely for the rest of their lives, while others have babies that they can’t feed so look to strangers to provide for them - or the babies die.

Warlords in Third World countries kill to protect their own interests regardless of the negligible contribution their peasant victims make to opposing their agendas. Landmines blow the limbs off children playing in the fields near their villages. Women are raped and then killed for being raped, to satisfy the honour of the men in their families.

Animals eat other animals. Polar bear cubs will be eaten by predatory males despite their cuteness and will eat you when they get bigger if they are hungry enough. That is nature’s way. A fox will kill all the chickens in a hen house well beyond the meeting of its hunger, just because of its blood lust. Where’s the fairness in that? Foxes get a bad press for this but it’s not their fault they are built with a blood lust that is only sated by ripping the throats out of helpless chickens. Let’s not forget, foxes have entered homes to attack babies in their cots. It’s not their fault. It’s hardly a considered action, just reflexive natural instinct.

Some people live in big houses with several cars on the drive - one for mum, one for dad and one for each child old enough to drive - while some live in cardboard boxes in the cold and the rain. This list could be several pages longer. Life is unfair - so why complain about it? This has been true for as long as life has existed on this planet. How naïve are you if you think fairness exists in any quantity beyond that found on the head of a pin. There’s my first point, Life is Unfair. Get used to it.

My second point is how low are your expectations if you are ‘Hoping for a C’? You go through your school days doing as little as possible and due to steadily declining standards consider ‘getting a C’ as a desirable achievement. How admirable is that?

There was a kid and his dad on TV, both whinging about how his life had been destroyed because he got a ‘D’.  Perhaps he should have tried a bit harder at school and aimed a bit higher? And perhaps his dad should look in the mirror when looking for someone to blame for his son’s failures?